Wife emigrating as nurse to New Zealand, Im a hazardous goods, fuel driver, 5 years plus experince with ADR and 11 years total of driving trucks.
Could anyone tell me the process for driving in New Zealand? Will i need to start from scratch with driving lessons and years of working towards the same job im doing now?
Have excellent driving and safety record, excellent time keeping and long distance travel (usually Liverpol to Argylle and Bute). Also have experince in Air products.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Contact the Kiwi consulate, they should know the latest rules.
Im ok with the immigration part as all going together and wife will start work to support us whilst im finding work but its the driving part and the jobs for truckers i need advice on. Will they be able to give me that information?
I know Australia i would start from scratch but cant find much about driving over in New Zealand as a trucker. I dont want my wife having to support us for years whilst im having to prove i can drive a truck.
Check with the Embassy as SDU says, but it seems that the UK licence is acceptable, and it costs $85 to obtain it.
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/driver-licences/new-residents-and-visitors/converting-to-nz-driver-licence/
It also seems that there is/has been a truck driver shortage, so some would be acceptable for immigration in their own rights, not just as the spouse of a migrant, so quite possibly you will get a good shout at a job.
Good luck.
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Is that the class 1 and 2 license from the UK for HGVs. From what ive found the car license is useable for 12 months prior to needing it converted but couldnt find updated info for the trucks. Thank you so much i will have a look.
i looked loosely a couple of months back and im sure they werent interested in uk drivers but if you insisted our class 1 was equivalent to there class three or rather they would only give you a class 3. of course if you were from other countries it was open arms time
The link includes a price for converting a Goods licence, so…?
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Thank you. Much appreciated
Has she allowed you to join her 
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She is more keen than me to get over there. Better life for our children, better work life balance. Think she is just taking me as the taxi 
Hello
The process for swapping license over is quite simple.
For a car licence you just take your your British licence in to nearest centre get an eye test and that’s it.
For HGV class one is a class 5 in NZ.
You just do a theory test and they convert your class one and you will have classes 1-5 on your nz licence.
NZ is a bit different driving. There is no sat nav.
Most are manuals and bit old school.
Bridges and weight limits aren’t marked out you need to know where they are.
It’s not gross weight it’s all done on axle weights.
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So I will have a bit of studying to do first by sounds of it. Sounds a bit dangerous with places not having weights, especially to new to New Zealand drivers but im sure I will get used to it.
I drove mobile cranes around in NZ it was bit strange at first but when I got use to it was fine.
If your doing abnormal loads you need do a self cross bridge engineering course aswell.
Load 
if I’m honest lol.
Because mobile cranes are all overweight on the axles there is 100s of bridges with weight limits you can’t cross or has some kind of restrictions on them around Auckland. none of them have any signage on them.
Only good thing for me was I was based in Auckland and never went any where else because it’s to far to travel to different cities.
So once got my head road the routes in Auckland it was fine.
Take your time on the roads aswell mate and proper look at the routes as some of the roads the call highways are hurrendous
Im hazardous goods, fuel and air product so do you think Id need to do the engineering course for those? I curently drive long distance and tramp out during the week as its better money.
Spoke to Nick garlick on facebook here is his reply he just does cl 5 learner test over here. On computer.35 questions, 25 on road code and up to 10 on cl 2 and cl 5.
I do it every week for people. tell him to contact John Marcus, best man in the training business.
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Mate there is no training needed
Just buy a theory test book revise the questions and book a test at your nearest AA centre when you get to NZ it’s pretty straight forward.
Thats really helpful. Thanks all. I will keep those details to hand.